As always, I'm on the continual quest to "get my life in order". I'm back on the project of getting all my finances into Quicken; I'm on track to pay off all my [non-mortgage] debt by the New Year; I swear I'll get those new head-shots printed within the next week and start doing auditions again...
One of those little "to-dos" that I've been dreading tackling is going through my credit reports and refuting any inaccuracies.
If you've ever filed to a copy of your credit report, you know how unreadable those things can be. Understanding the difference between an R1 and R2 status code, deciphering what accounts are open and which are closed, etc. It's a mess. Worse is considering the practice of initiating challenges to items and fighting to get them cleaned.
And I'm one of those people who takes matters personally, getting quickly frustrated. In the past there've been a couple of incidents where I really got screwed by trying to close accounts with banks or utilities, paying the final bill, and never receiving a notice that due to some "correction" an outstanding dollar or two remained. The result: claims that I've defaulted on accounts.
But this year I'm trying to close the loop on all my life-chaos, and while flying back from my friend's wedding I was reading Money Magazine about how due to new regulations I could request 1 free credit report from all 3 agencies per year. I decided to go home, request those reports and face the music.
A couple of interesting notes. First of all, these reports are MUCH more readable than they used to be. Instead of archaic R1 and U2 codes you just look for "Paid or paying as agreed". The reports put "negative marks" at the top where you can zero in on them immediately. On the cheap side, all 3 agencies offer their free reports only via web page screen shots. They wont mail hard-copies to you. (It would have been nice if they would offer a PDF-formatted version, but maybe I'm the only person who would be anal enough to want that.)
So here's the bit of surprisingly good news: I have no smudges on my credit reports anymore. Not a one! I was sure I was going to have to contest a snafu (described above) when I'd paid my New York phone bill in full, closed the account, but their computer decided to try to place next bill's charge on my New York checking account which I'd also closed and generated a $10 bounced check fee that I never heard about. Nope, no mention of it.
I'm almost tempted to pay for a copy of my FICO score(s) to see where I stand. Not that I'm in the market to take out any new credit. The only thing left is to finish converting my business into an S-Corp so I can generate a decent years-long work history under a single "employer" (myself). The fact that I've been a contractor (sometimes) or an employee of a temp agency (aka "permatemp") makes me the proverbial square peg in the round hole that made it impossible for me to get really good mortgages 3 years ago, even when work has been steady. (I had to deal with 6.6% while my mom could secure 5.0%.)
Anyway, it's nice to look at all this stuff and realize my books are clean. One less headache to deal with!
Posted by Murray Todd Williams at September 28, 2005 04:42 PM